Seems an odd thing. Don't want carbon anode but taking silicon microstructure and layering it with many layers of carbon so it can breathe? How does the silicon act as an anode when the better conductive carbon surrounds it? How much is "stronger performance"? Confusing.

Rice, pine and snail (the wandering meatloaf no less) teeth batteries sure seem to be to be getting lots of natural inspiration from nature, maybe eventually they will not suck and be better than pumping water up hill.

Seems an odd thing. Don't want carbon anode but taking silicon microstructure and layering it with many layers of carbon so it can breathe? How does the silicon act as an anode when the better conductive carbon surrounds it? How much is "stronger performance"? Confusing.

Silicon anodes are the next step for batteries in the next few years. Being able to successfully create a silicon anode will boost energy storage densities by 30-40% (to between 200-300Wh/kg). Silicon can hold up to four lithium ions, whereas carbon can only hold one. But it pulverizes the silicon, rendering it useless after 50 cycles. It needs some latticework to allow the expansion and contraction during each cycle. The lattice described here is from the structure of the rice husks. Carbon is needed to conduct the electrons to and from the lithium ions in the silicon (silicon itself isn't a great conductor).

Using silicon we can make the anode thinner (and the battery thinner/smaller, or cram more layers in a prismatic battery pouch). The next step after we improve the anode is to improve the cathode, which boosts capacity closer to 400Wh/kg. After that we start to see other technologies kick in - Lithium Sulfur (600Wh/kg), Lithium Air (1000Wh/kg).

There are generally five main parameters to judge the quality of a battery: energy density (Wh/kg), power density (Wh/kg), cycle life (cycles to 80% original capacity), temperature performance (how does it perform in cold/hot conditions), and safety. "Stronger performance" is likely tied to whatever it is that they're measuring - energy, power or cycle life.

I think the media should impose a ban on all battery technology articles. I can't tell you how many "breakthrough battery" articles I've read through the years, and the only thing that's happened is battery technology has creeped along at a snail's pace. Wake me when it actually happens.

I think the media should impose a ban on all battery technology articles. I can't tell you how many "breakthrough battery" articles I've read through the years, and the only thing that's happened is battery technology has creeped along at a snail's pace. Wake me when it actually happens.

Science "happens" every day, but the distance from a lab to a shelf may be enormous due to a lot of reasons. Still, every step forward is a step in the right direction.

I think the media should impose a ban on all battery technology articles. I can't tell you how many "breakthrough battery" articles I've read through the years, and the only thing that's happened is battery technology has creeped along at a snail's pace. Wake me when it actually happens.

Interestingly enough, battery progress is incremental. So while we've seen progress here and there in minor bits, if you look at batteries now vs 10 years ago, we have significant progress.

Are they doing amorphous carbon deposition from some gas or are they doing something stupid like using single walled carbon nanotubes like the wood fiber article from the other day? If they're doing a vapor deposition process then kudos because there's some chance of it actually becoming a commercial product some day.

I think the media should impose a ban on all battery technology articles. I can't tell you how many "breakthrough battery" articles I've read through the years, and the only thing that's happened is battery technology has creeped along at a snail's pace. Wake me when it actually happens.

Batteries get better at a rate of about 8-10% per year. Taken one year at a time, 8% is not a breakthrough. But over time all these add up to a significant increase - a doubling of energy capacity every 8-10 years. The good news is that the rate seems to be increasing - the amount of money being spent on battery research is increasing dramatically.

Wish I could bring myself to believe that any manufacturers getting into this would confine themselves to using the discards and not divert any portion of the crop and destroying the grain as unneeded waste material. The last thing we need is another food crop getting diverted to industrial uses...

Rice chaff should go back to the field as fertilizer.If you want vegetal silicon and be useful, use horsetail.It's rich in silicon too, to the point that it was used to polish precious metals.It's also used as a tea sprayed on vegetables or strawberries for the silicon to create a protective layer against fungi and bacteria. And it's a crop and pasture weed too, that's where the useful part comes in.

It seems like I read of numerous hi-tech or found-in-nature anode replacement technology stories over the years. Its always in the "10 years to production" phase or earlier.

Yet we still have the same crappy batteries in our mobile devices, laptops, cars and now even airplanes.

Interesting I guess, but wake we me up when I can actually buy something.

10 years ago your device probably used a fairly low density form of nickel metal hydride battery or possibly lithium ion, today it's using a third or fourth generation lithium polymer cell. 10 years before that there was about a 99.9% chance it was nicad. As another poster pointed out commercial battery density has increased around 8% per year for quite some time, it's nowhere near as fast as computing power doubling every 18 months but much faster than say internal combustion efficiency.

I think the media should impose a ban on all battery technology articles. I can't tell you how many "breakthrough battery" articles I've read through the years, and the only thing that's happened is battery technology has creeped along at a snail's pace. Wake me when it actually happens.

Batteries get better at a rate of about 8-10% per year. Taken one year at a time, 8% is not a breakthrough. But over time all these add up to a significant increase - a doubling of energy capacity every 8-10 years. The good news is that the rate seems to be increasing - the amount of money being spent on battery research is increasing dramatically.

Plus, technology as a whole is on a push for energy efficiency, since the power of our devices has reached a "good enough" plateau for now.

Silicon anodes are the next step for batteries in the next few years. Being able to successfully create a silicon anode will boost energy storage densities by 30-40% (to between 200-300Wh/kg). Silicon can hold up to four lithium ions, whereas carbon can only hold one. But it pulverizes the silicon, rendering it useless after 50 cycles. It needs some latticework to allow the expansion and contraction during each cycle. The lattice described here is from the structure of the rice husks. Carbon is needed to conduct the electrons to and from the lithium ions in the silicon (silicon itself isn't a great conductor).

I hope it would do better than that. Panasonic is already selling batteries at 250+Wh/kg.

There are apparently 5,672 new way to make a "better" battery. They can be lighter, rechargeable faster, hold more power, and last longer. And yet, I'm still using AA batteries in my remote that either die in four months or need to be recharged every two weeks.

When are all of these new technologies supposed to actually hit? It's WAY past time for the first of the super batteries to have been made for the public. It's the first step to battery powered cars that can be charged in a minute at the "pump" but can go 300 miles per charge (about what I can make on a full tank using AC, in stop and go traffic).

There are apparently 5,672 new way to make a "better" battery. They can be lighter, rechargeable faster, hold more power, and last longer. And yet, I'm still using AA batteries in my remote that either die in four months or need to be recharged every two weeks.

Are you sitting on your remotes or something? Or maybe buying the cheapest batteries you can? Changing the batteries in my remotes is more like an annual event.

It seems like I read of numerous hi-tech or found-in-nature anode replacement technology stories over the years. Its always in the "10 years to production" phase or earlier.

Yet we still have the same crappy batteries in our mobile devices, laptops, cars and now even airplanes.

About "10 years" ago, Li-Ion batteries existed, but were expensive to mass-produce, and so fairly rare. Back then, NiMH batteries were more common, and your laptop and PDA was significantly heavier. Over that time, we haven't had a chemistry change, but Li-Ion batteries have gone from storing less power than equivalent NiMH batteries (but being lighter), to now beating them by 50-100% in power capacity, without added weight, and with price falling.

Also, 7 years ago low self discharge (LSD) NiMH batteries didn't exist, either, so your rechargeable batteries would be nearly dead after sitting around doing nothing for a month or two... Now LSD NiMH batteries will hold an almost-full charge for YEARS.

Batteries are improving significantly, and rapidly. If you don't want to hear about all the internal technical developments as they happen, maybe you shouldn't be reading a "tech" site, and instead just reading the battery life figures off cell phones as they come out...

It is no wonder that Korean researcher put their eyes on the porous silica structure of rice husk. A porous silica from the rice husk is studied extensively in Korea. Silica material from rice husk is already used in various industrial applications in massive quantity, as adsorbents similar to zeolite. Both are microporous silica used in water filter material, catalyzer carrier, medicine delivery carrier or filler, cosmetic substance, etc. It is used even as construction material to reinforce concrete. It is kind of zeolite replacement from plants and both shares similar properties and similar industrial applications.. Anyway, rice is main food staples of Korean daily diet and rice husk is just agricultural waste, cheap and available in massive quantity.

Doesn't it seem like every month we read about some serious battery breakthrough like this one? I am jaded by how many of these are still in development. It seems the gap between first discovery and high volume production is very long. I'd love to get excited by this one but because of past vaporware... yawn.

And yet, I'm still using AA batteries in my remote that either die in four months or need to be recharged every two weeks.

Buy some Eneloops you idiot. LSD-NiMH batteries have long since surpassed the capacity, durability, longevity, etc. of alkalines. And if you're buying disposables, you can always go for lithiums.

Or you could be nice and *suggest* Eneloop without being a condescending fool, and also PowerGenix NiZn batteries, which are far less hazardous to the environment, have had their charge cycle issues fixed, and are 100% recyclable, with comparable energy density to Ni-MH and a higher nominal cell voltage (which for cameras means faster flash recovery times and usually faster processing speed.)

It seems like I read of numerous hi-tech or found-in-nature anode replacement technology stories over the years. Its always in the "10 years to production" phase or earlier.

Yet we still have the same crappy batteries in our mobile devices, laptops, cars and now even airplanes.

Interesting I guess, but wake we me up when I can actually buy something.

10 years ago your device probably used a fairly low density form of nickel metal hydride battery or possibly lithium ion, today it's using a third or fourth generation lithium polymer cell. 10 years before that there was about a 99.9% chance it was nicad. As another poster pointed out commercial battery density has increased around 8% per year for quite some time, it's nowhere near as fast as computing power doubling every 18 months but much faster than say internal combustion efficiency.

Case in point - My old Nokia 3210 mobile (one of the best mobiles ever made) - many hours talktime, but don't think it could hold a call for a full day. Storage: about 50 phone numbers, and 10 texts. If you received text number 11, you had to delete some older texts to make room before you could receive the new text.

Now: the new Macbook Air. More power than a giant Mac Pro from a few years ago. 12 hours battery life powered up on wifi, a month of sleep, more or less infinite storage of contacts and email and text messages (iMessage), large and very fast onboard storage of other stuff, and access to the infinities of the internet. Achieved through both dedication to programming a better power-saving OS and boosting battery capacity, all in a weight not all that much more than the Nokia.